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The North Miami mayor's race has gotten pretty heated in the last few weeks and one candidate says she's even received intimidation in the form of vodou.
Anna Pierre told NBC6 that she found candles, food offerings, and dolls with pins stuck in them in front of her office door over the last three months.
"The vodou stuff, I don't know who's doing it, but I'm not afraid," she told the news station. "It's just intimidation to ... slow me down. But you know what? I'm not going to slow down until the finish line."
Pierre told the Miami Herald 50 of her campaign signs have been stolen and she has received anonymous phone calls telling her to drop out of the race.
As for as the items left on her doorstep, “They can put all the voduo they want,” Pierre told the Herald. “I’m a Christian woman. I’m not scared.”
North Miami has the second largest U.S. population of immigrants from Haiti, where Vodou is a cultural and religious tradition.
Gina Athena Ulysse, Professor of Anthropology & African American Studies at Wesleyan University, blogs for The Huffington Post often dispelling the "geopolitically driven myths" of Voduo:
Growing up as a child in Haiti, I had no concept of what is referred to as "Voodoo" in the U.S. In fact, the more appropriate word, Vodou, was not part of my vocabulary. The tradition that some members of my family followed was known as "serving the spirits." Even that phrase was not something we actively used, since our actual engagement was rooted more in daily practice than naming. Serving meant living in a world where the sacred and secular were blurred. So it was commonplace to see adults pour libations of water and coffee three times onto the ground upon awakening in the morning before even speaking to one another. Or sometimes they rushed to the outhouse, I would learn later, to expunge bad dreams that should not be spoken in order to deflect their mal-intention and prevent entry into the home.
To be sure, like any other religion, Vodou has its extremities. There are secret societies that have their own system of governance with ritual practices and sacrifices that border the surreal.
Interestingly, Pierre was something of a pop star in her home county of Haiti. In the 1990s, she released the song "Mete Suk Sou Bonbon," which translates to "Put some sugar on the candy."
Watch the video below:
Nearby in North Miami Beach, two police department employees were fired for allegedly plotting to put a Santeria curse on the city manager.
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